Below are details of a public meeting, and a statement from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees in response to the forced relocation of hundreds of asylum seeking families in Glasgow. The Campaign has called a public meeting on Tuesday 27th June, 7pm-9:30pm in Pollokshaws Burgh Hall, and has launched a petition calling on the Home Office, the Council and the new private landlords to find decent housing in the areas where asylum seeking families want to stay. For copies of the petition to print out, fill in and return, send an email to glascamref@hotmail.com or noborders-glasgow@riseup.net
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Keep our communities together!
Public meeting:
Tuesday 27 June at 7pm.
Pollokshaws Burgh Halls
2025 Pollokshaws Road
Speakers in support of keeping asylum seeking members of our communities in their own neighbourhoods:
Jock Morris, Chair, Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Councillor Stephen Curran (Ward 71 Pollokshaws)
Bill Spiers, Scottish Trades Union Congress
Robina Qureshi, Positive Action In Housing
Others being invited
Others being invited
Buses: Numbers 45, 47, 57 and Barrhead & Thornliebank buses to the doorTrain: to Pollokshaws West from Central Station.
For more information, phone Jock on 07896 877 315 or Colin on 0141 632 5811
For more information, phone Jock on 07896 877 315 or Colin on 0141 632 5811
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Keeping Communities Together
The insistence of the Home Office in including a 19% private element in the housing arrangements for asylum-seekers in Glasgow is causing great distress and disruption for asylum-seeker families.
Approximately 300 families have to change to a private landlord and for most, this will mean leaving the homes they have occupied for up to five years. Rather than being found accommodation in their own area, most families are being told they must move or have their financial support cut off. They are to be separated from their local support networks and their children moved from schools in which they are happy. Their communities will lose the friendship and integrated neighbourliness many local people have worked so hard to achieve.
Roughly half the families are being dispersed about the city by the Angel group and the other half are being sent to the YMCA's tower block hostel in the Red Road in Springburn. While the working class people of Glasgow strive to support their new friends and neighbours, the Young Men's Christian Association is intent on establishing an asylum-seeker ghetto in one tower block. In spite of being invited to state reasons why this accommodation is unsuitable, the first of these families has already been refused by the Home Office and told that they must move to the YMCA in Red Road.
The buildings that most of these families live in are due for demolition at some time in the future but none of them for at least two years. There need be no hurry to move these families and there are alternative empty houses in their areas.
We call upon the Home Office, Glasgow City Council, the Angel group and the YMCA to treat our asylum-seeker friends and neighbours with respect and dignity, to take due regard of their rights and needs and, where they choose, to delay their moving home and seek alternative accommodation for them in the neighbourhoods where they are established.
Signed:
Jock Morris, Chair, Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Colin Deans, Chair, Pollokshaws Burgh Halls
The insistence of the Home Office in including a 19% private element in the housing arrangements for asylum-seekers in Glasgow is causing great distress and disruption for asylum-seeker families.
Approximately 300 families have to change to a private landlord and for most, this will mean leaving the homes they have occupied for up to five years. Rather than being found accommodation in their own area, most families are being told they must move or have their financial support cut off. They are to be separated from their local support networks and their children moved from schools in which they are happy. Their communities will lose the friendship and integrated neighbourliness many local people have worked so hard to achieve.
Roughly half the families are being dispersed about the city by the Angel group and the other half are being sent to the YMCA's tower block hostel in the Red Road in Springburn. While the working class people of Glasgow strive to support their new friends and neighbours, the Young Men's Christian Association is intent on establishing an asylum-seeker ghetto in one tower block. In spite of being invited to state reasons why this accommodation is unsuitable, the first of these families has already been refused by the Home Office and told that they must move to the YMCA in Red Road.
The buildings that most of these families live in are due for demolition at some time in the future but none of them for at least two years. There need be no hurry to move these families and there are alternative empty houses in their areas.
We call upon the Home Office, Glasgow City Council, the Angel group and the YMCA to treat our asylum-seeker friends and neighbours with respect and dignity, to take due regard of their rights and needs and, where they choose, to delay their moving home and seek alternative accommodation for them in the neighbourhoods where they are established.
Signed:
Jock Morris, Chair, Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Colin Deans, Chair, Pollokshaws Burgh Halls
*To add your name, or your organisation's, contact the Campaign at glascamref@hotmail.com
or via noborders-glasgow@riseup.net
